180g … It’s All Hype !

I think they‘re mainly for the “use LP‘s to listen to sounds and their systems crowd“

drastically changing the timbre of Cat Stevens’ plastic-bodied Ovation acoustic guitar (and the drummer’s cymbals, which I always found severely lacking in shimmer).

in which case the music doesn‘t really matter anyway…

One example is the new pressing of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album. It is a 2016 pressing dist by Sony Music. Not sure it’s 180 gram but it is heavy. It is way better than the Columbia pressing that I bought in the 1970s. It is not just quieter but also sounds better.

I have a special edition Mobile Fidelity 200 gram version of Alan Parson’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. It is clearly superior in sound to my original copy that I bought in 1977. I picked up this special edition at a stereo store in Las Vegas in 1994. This is one of my favorite stories to tell. I worked for Bosch at the time and was on a hot fuel test trip with Ford at their Arizona Proving Grounds. The work was done and I was back in Las Vegas with the afternoon and evening to kill before taking the redeye back to Detroit. I was wearing a golf shirt that had the Ford and Bosch logos stitched onto it. These were some team shirts that we had made for the trip. I had been wearing this shirt all day. I found a stereo store in Las Vegas and walked in to take a look around. That was my first encounter with Apogee speakers. Anyway, the store owner said that he liked my shirt because he liked Fords and he also sold Blaupunkt Radios (owned by Bosch). I spotted the Tales of Mystery and Imagination MFSL version on his record rack and said I would trade him my shirt for that record. He agreed so I went to the car and got out another shirt to wear and handed him my smelly sweaty Bosch/Ford shirt for the record. It was awesome and I recall that event every time I play it. btw- tried streaming the online newer version. The first song and mix are completely different from my albums. Don’t know what that is all about but I clearly prefer the version of my albums.

Check out the pressing issues on the record he received and in today’s offerings it’s an issue that happens all too often and really needs to be addressed by the record manufacturers.

@flasd: Uh, the quip about smoking LSD is what’s called a joke. The joke’s on me; I didn’t anticipate anyone not having heard it before, or of not getting it now (I am guilty of giving people too much credit). I first heard it out of the mouth of Robert Kennedy, who said it with a wink. flasd, get it now?

By the way: I first took LSD in 1967, last in 1968. How ’bout you? I would hazard a guess that I’ve forgotten more about that very dangerous drug than you will ever know. Not that that is something to be proud of.

Another point to be made is that in the comparison between an original pressing and a reissue, there may not be a clear winner: the original may better the reissue in some regards, the reissue the original in others. Another reason to characterize the statement that 180g reissues are hype as an over-simplification.

Many members of the Vinyl Community on YouTube have compared original pressings of Blue Note LP’s with the reissued versions (Tone Poet, and Blue classic Series), and prefer the original in some regards, the reissue in others. And in some cases, with a particular title the original pressing is preferred in all regards, with other titles the reissue is. Again, too over-simplify is to be foolish. Unless one has an agenda.

Another consideration is that an original pressing of a rare LP can cost one far, far more than a reissue. Some of the original Blue Note’s now sell for four figures. The Classic Series reissues sell for under $25. How much are you willing to pay for an original?

As I said above, I have LP’s dating back to the 1950’s. To say that mass-market LP’s from the 50’s through the 80’s were made with better quality control than those now made by the audiophile reissue companies is utterly ridiculous, completely untrue. Now not all reissues are done by audiophile-orientated companies; it takes knowledge to understand what reissues are worth buying.

By the way: the very rare 1994 pressing of Petty’s Wildflower LP was mastered from a digital file, the recent reissue from the analogue master tapes. Which version would you rather own?